


Just One Yesterday

by cobalamincosel



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Coming of Age, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:40:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25247776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobalamincosel/pseuds/cobalamincosel
Summary: Johnny and Yuta are best friends, inseparable from the age of five until Yuta has to move out of Chicago at sixteen.Four years of radio silence, a Facebook message, and one fateful brunch together later, they find their way back to each other again.
Relationships: Nakamoto Yuta/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 62
Kudos: 391





	Just One Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [speckledsolanaceae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/speckledsolanaceae/gifts).



> **THERE IS PAST YUTA/TAEYONG HERE but I only mention them briefly so I didn't tag it so as to not clog up the Yutae tag.**
> 
> The absolutely lovely Miss Anne was kind enough to commission me to do this, and it was such a joy to be able to write something for her. Anne, I look up to you immensely as both writer and friend. 
> 
> The prompt was essentially friends to lovers. I hope I did this justice. :D 
> 
> My absolute thanks to Ain who beta read this so quickly, and who, as always, was willing to languish in Johnyu hell with me. <3
> 
> Title is from Fall Out Boy's song of the same name because I clearly have no creativity when it comes to fic titles i am so sorry :(

Johnny has a lot of scars, but most of them are on his right leg. Yuta knows this because he was there for every single one. 

There’s the one that looks like plastic now across Johnny’s shin, a result of when they’d been ten years old and playing cops and robbers after the rainfall. Johnny’s foot had slipped on a concrete stair and landed shin-fist on the jagged edge. 

Yuta had watched in horror as blood pooled around what at the time had looked like bone. Johnny hadn’t cried, but Yuta had, thinking it was his fault that his best friend had gotten hurt. 

Yuta had run to get someone to help, and sniffled all the way through while Johnny’s dad bandaged up his leg. Instead of comforting Johnny, Johnny had had to comfort him, but Johnny had never brought that up again, so Yuta hadn’t, either.

There’s the one that had resulted from getting burnt on a motor exhaust when the two of them had secretly taken Yuta’s uncle’s motorcycle out for a ride. They were fifteen and fucking stupid and had not had anyone’s permission, but Yuta had been convincing, and Johnny was so easily convinced. 

“It’s just like riding a bicycle, dude,” Yuta had said. Johnny hadn’t known how to drive a motorbike, so when Yuta, sat behind him and peeking out over his shoulder, had released his hold on the handles, Johnny had panicked and revved the engine. 

They’d ended up speeding up momentarily before Yuta had taken control again, and they’d sort of toppled off to the side against a wall, and Johnny, in shorts at the time, had had his bare leg resting on the motor exhaust before he’d realized he’d gotten burnt. Johnny and Yuta had had to dress the succeeding blister themselves, and Johnny had taken to wearing pants in the middle of summer to hide the wound from his mom. 

Then there’s the one on Johnny’s knee that he’d gotten at sixteen, when he’d fallen to the ground in the rain, running after Yuta’s dad’s car as they pulled out of the recently-emptied garage, and drove out of Chicago for good. 

Yuta had watched Johnny jog behind them, yelling something unintelligible before he’d tripped. Yuta had pressed his face against the window silently, breath fogging up the glass as he watched his best friend clutching at his knee, and crying in the rain. Yuta’s never seen the scar, but he’s sure it’s there.

It’s baffling that Yuta should be thinking of Johnny’s scars right now, while Johnny is seated across him, browsing through the menu while Yuta reads the list of appetizers for what seems like the tenth time. 

“Do you know what you wanna get?” Johnny asks him, and Yuta just keeps trying to piece together the image of the sixteen-year-old boy who’d chased after their car in the rain with this twenty-year-old man in front of him. 

“Uh,” Yuta says smartly. “I think I’ll just have the runny eggs and kaya toast set.” 

Johnny nods and calls the waiter over, and places their orders. 

Yuta’s not sure why he’s nervous about this when he and Johnny aren’t exactly strangers, and it’s only been four years since they’d seen each other last, but then again, four years is a long time when he considered the fact that they haven’t even spoken much since Yuta moved away. 

“So,” Johnny starts, pulling his black cap off and setting it down on the table, running his fingers through his hair and making the soft brown waves stick out on end before pushing his bangs away from his forehead again. “Like I know we chatted about this for a bit but how are you, man? It’s been forever.”

“It has,” Yuta says, fiddling with the earring on his right lobe--a nervous habit he’d never been able to shake since he first got it pierced, after he’d moved to Neo City. “I’ve been good. College kicking my ass and everything but you know how it goes.” 

“What are you majoring in again?” Johnny asks, leaning back in his seat. There seems to be so much more of him than Yuta remembers, like he takes up so much more space than his body suggests, though Johnny’s certainly filled out in that regard, as well. 

“I’m a communications major,” Yuta replies, taking a sip from his water goblet, wishing he could relax. This is his friend. Sure, he’s a friend who decided to message him out of the blue on Facebook where the last message had been from 2010, a birthday greeting to Johnny that had gone unanswered, but he’s still a friend. “Parents weren’t too happy about it, but dad warmed to it after some coaxing, and now I’m drowning in theory and readings, so I really just played myself.”

Johnny laughs, and Yuta has to keep shaking the memory of the Johnny he once knew because this Johnny feels different, looks different. There’s four years of catching up to do. 

“Well, we never really know what we’re gonna be good at, you know?” Johnny replies. “I tell myself daily that engineering wasn’t a mistake, but boy, when I’m studying for my exams, the regret runs deep. This term at SMU’s gonna be fun, but my ass is gonna be grass for sure, competing with the big brains here.” 

“I can imagine,” Yuta says, covering his face with his hand. “You hated math in middle school, the fuck you decide to take engineering up for?” 

“It seemed like a good idea at the time!” Johnny says, and Yuta starts to feel his back let go of whatever weird tension he’d been letting build up there, one vertebra at a time, now that they’re laughing again. “And besides, it was less about me hating it and more about me hating Mr. Morgenstern or whatever the fuck his name was.”

“It was Mr. Mortensen, you asshole,” Yuta throws back. “I’m the one that left Chicago but your memory’s still more shit than mine.” 

“I never was the sharpest tool in the shed and you were always the brains. No idea how I ended up here,” Johnny says, just as their brunch arrives, the massive plate of sausages and what appears to be three sunny-side-up eggs being placed carefully in front of Johnny while the server places bottles of light and dark soy sauce by Yuta’s utensils. “How are your parents?” 

“Dad went through a triple by-pass after we moved here, and then decided he was done being a stuck-up workaholic, so he and mom essentially went through like a second honeymoon after his cardio cleared him,” Yuta says, cutting into the toast and smearing kaya jam all over it before popping it into his mouth. “They’ve been really good since the Alaskan cruise, which is fucked up to me. Cruises freak me out, but whatever.”

“You don’t like boats in general,” Johnny says, cutting up his sausages all in one go before even eating a piece. Johnny never used to like his eggs sunny-side-up. Yuta files it away, for some reason, unable to stop cataloging the things that are the same and the things that have changed since time and distance and life had separated them. He wonders if Johnny is doing the same. 

Their conversation progresses the way Yuta remembers learning how to ride a bike when they were kids: rocky until it just became effortless. They’d both started out with training wheels, and Johnny’s dad had decided one day that they needed to learn without them, so they’d watched Mr. Suh unscrew the wheels from their bikes and wondered how they were expected to learn. 

Yuta remembers climbing onto his bike while Mr. Suh held it steady and in place, and told Yuta to move his feet. It had been sort of terrifying and exciting, Mr. Suh running behind him while he kept the bike upright and Yuta kept pedaling. 

Yuta hadn’t even realized that he’d been biking on his own already until he’d reached the end of the street. 

🌿

Yuta is fifteen when he considers asking Johnny to kiss him, but ultimately chickens out. 

He’s not sure _why_ he’s on the verge of asking it, but the thought had popped into his head over the weekend, realizing that neither of them had ever had their first kiss, and they don’t actually talk about that stuff, even when all the other guys in school are bragging about their seven minutes in heaven with the girls in class, and Timothy Squallor would not shut the fuck up about getting to second base with Erika Linden from Biology. 

Johnny is sprawled out on Yuta’s bed next to him with his Nintendo DS in hand, frowning at the screen with his tongue caught between his teeth when Yuta breaches the topic. 

“Hey,” Yuta starts, heart hammering in his chest for some reason. “Do you like anyone in class?”

Johnny hisses a “shit” under his breath, and then looks up from the game, confused. 

“Huh? No,” Johnny says. “Why?”

“Nothing,” Yuta says, shrugging one shoulder, his own DS sitting lamely in his hands. “Just like. Curious.”

“Why? Do _you_ like someone?” Johnny asks absentmindedly, turning back to his game. 

“No,” Yuta says bluntly. “Not interested in anyone.” 

It’s mostly the truth, even if he’s still stiff as a board wondering how it would make logical sense for him to ask his best friend to kiss him. Johnny doesn’t reply, only gets back to his game.

“Have you ever kissed anyone?” Yuta continues his line of questioning, knowing how fucking weird it is that he’s asking this at all, even if they’ve asked each other weirder things, know each other’s bowel habits, theorized about life on Mars, have gone ghost hunting in the old Schaffer house on weekends. 

“Pretty sure I would have told you if I had, Yuyu,” Johnny replies. “You’re throwing my concentration, dude.”

Yuta drops it, and gets back to his Pokemon walking through a thatch of pixelated grass.

Johnny doesn’t ask about it, and Yuta wouldn’t exactly have answers if he did, so later, he asks Johnny if he wants to go through the DVD collection downstairs and watch a movie in the living room on the big TV. They watch Constantine and V for Vendetta back-to-back, and Yuta’s mother makes them her special mac n’ cheese for dinner. 

Johnny never mentions it, not for years, and so neither does Yuta.

🌿

The morning blends into the afternoon as Yuta and Johnny make their way through Earl Stone Park, about three blocks away from the restaurant they’d come from. They don’t have much planned for the day, and they’re both familiar enough with the city that it doesn’t really matter where they’re headed exactly. They’ve just been talking the entire time, laughing about the things they used to do as kids, Johnny doubled over as he tells Yuta the shit that happened in senior year after Yuta had moved away. 

They mostly dance around the issue of Yuta’s actual departure, not so much so because he left at all, because that was completely out of their hands, but rather the fact that his departure had spelled the beginning of a four-year drought in their friendship that they’d both had had a hand in contributing to. 

Johnny tells Yuta about how he’d tried dating Macy Greener before graduation and lost his virginity to her, but she’d been much more interested in him as a player in the basketball team than him as a person, and that she’d dumped him two months later in a completely ice cold manner at Seongcheol’s massive grad party. She hadn’t even wanted him posting photos of them on Facebook, which Johnny says should have been a red flag, really.

“That’s cruel, holy fuck,” Yuta laughs, trying to imagine what Johnny must have looked like, crying “Macy, please,” while holding a red cup outside Seongcheol’s house. 

“You laugh now, but I genuinely cried myself to sleep that night, dude,” Johnny says in mock-hurt, frowning before breaking out into laughter himself. “Okay, so it was really fucking pathetic but come on! I’d lost my best friend and then my girlfriend in the span of one year. Sue me.”

Yuta’s breath catches in his throat, and he pauses walking, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, which makes Johnny quirk his eyebrow at him.

“What?” Johnny asks, his iced coffee halfway to his mouth, the straw just a couple of centimeters out of reach. 

“I’m sorry,” Yuta says, and the weight and the guilt come crashing down on him because he knows that communication is a two-way street and while Johnny hadn’t been great about staying in touch, neither had he, and that’s as much on his shoulders especially since he was the one who left. “I’m sorry that you felt like you lost a best friend and that I sucked so badly at keeping tabs.” 

Panic registers in Johnny’s eyes for a quick second before it melts into something warmer, more familiar, like the last summer that they spent together before Yuta had dropped the bomb that he was leaving. 

“Yuyu,” Johnny says softly. The old nickname settles over Yuta like a warm cloak. “I’m not here to wrangle an apology out of you, or guilt you into like, throwing yourself at your feet for me, man. I was bad at keeping in touch, so were you, life happened, and we’re here now, catching up!”

Johnny’s enthusiasm is catching, and while it doesn’t dispel all of Yuta’s guilt, he’s grateful for the out, figuring that if Johnny was here, in the flesh, telling him that this is their reset point, no hard feelings, then he should learn to roll with it, too. 

🌿

It’s only when Yuta has settled into his new room in his new apartment in this new city that it hits him that he’s an entire time zone away from Chicago, which doesn’t seem like too much, but considering that it’s a 12-hour drive away from Chicago to Neo City-- well. That feels like an entire country away to him, now that he’s on the verge of adulthood and having to start from scratch. 

The layout of his bedroom is so vastly different from his old one. His bed is pushed into the corner of the room now, and his cabinets are built into the wall, right in front of his window. When he stares out into the city, it’s busy restaurants and streetlights and in the morning, bustling people on the street. He’s in a world absolutely different from the duplex they used to have in Chicago. He wishes he was home. 

Yuta manages to message Johnny on Facebook about a week after the move and sends it off using the shitty public wifi in the cafe next to their building, and Yuta’s lucky Johnny’s online when he is cos they’re able to catch up a bit. 

Real-life, however, moves so much faster than Yuta can seem to manage. Senior year in high school already inherently fucking sucks. It sure as hell doesn’t help that he’s the new Asian kid in school, but that’s where he meets Taeyong and Mark, both Lees but without any relation to each other, they tell him when they bump into him in the cafeteria. 

He really gets along surprisingly well with the Lees, and kind of wishes that Johnny was around since he’s sure that Johnny would hit it off with them. He tells Johnny as much when he texts him, but between trying to get his homework done and trying to expand his social circle in his new place, Yuta finds that conversations with Johnny start to drift off. He’ll send in a stupid joke and Johnny will reply three days later, after which Yuta doesn’t reply at all. 

That seems to be the way life works, like it catches up to you, and then suddenly you’re trying to catch up to it. The months fly by on Yuta’s calendar and texts come in from Taeyong inviting him to parties and Mark whining about how he’s not allowed at said parties. 

Texts from Johnny grow stagnant, but it’s not like Yuta tries very hard, not when he’s busy sneaking beers at Vernon’s house parties and Johnny’s posting photos of the basketball championships and stupid 9gag links on his feed. 

But the real kicker is when prom season rolls around and Johnny posts a photo of him with Alice Chen, his arms wrapped around her waist, her full bosom practically spilling out of her silver dress, her face framed in too-tight curls that make her look like a black-haired Shirley Temple. 

Yuta doesn’t expect the jolt to his gut when he sees that, because he’d never actually factored in the possibility that Johnny would be the type to actually date someone, or go to prom. In his head, it had always been him and Johnny, and Johnny hadn’t talked about liking girls when they’d hang out. He hadn’t talked about dating in general, really. The one time Yuta had tried, Johnny had brushed him off.

It throws Yuta in for a loop because he’s going to prom next week stag, just planning to hang out with Taeyong and their friend Jisoo for the night since they’re pitching in to book a room for them to chill in. 

Yuta goes down a deep dive, clicking through all the photos uploaded by Johnny: photos of Johnny with their class, some fake arthouse shots of his date that somehow has Yuta simmering in his seat, hunched over his desk like he’s--

Jealous. 

No, no way. He isn’t jealous.

He pauses on a photo of Johnny and Alice making peace signs in front of a mirror, and she’s all up in his space. Johnny’s hair is ironed straight, his bangs hanging over one eye, his grey suit ill-fitting. Yuta thinks he looks ridiculous, and closes out the window. 

It leaves him feeling strange for days, not quite understanding why he’s so angry at Johnny for something that doesn’t even concern Yuta. He messages Johnny even less and less, until their texts halt completely. 

It isn’t jealousy. It can’t be jealousy.

When prom rolls around for him, and Yuta ends up with a lapful of Taeyong and a tongue in his mouth, things kind of start to make sense, like Tetris pieces falling into the right crevices. 

🌿

When Yuta looks back on the year that transpired after leaving Chicago, he realizes that he really hadn’t allowed himself to think too much about what he was leaving behind, despite the fact that he and Johnny had been joined at the hip at five years old. 

It had a lot to do with the fact that he was the one who left, not the one who was left behind, and he knows, now that he’s older, that he’d just been so focused on trying to set things up for himself in a new place that he’d thought leaving Chicago and Johnny behind were things that he had just outgrown. 

It’s surreal to be walking through Neo City now with his then-best friend keeping pace next to him as the sun sets. This has been Yuta’s home for three years, and Johnny’s for three weeks, but Johnny fits into the city and next to him seamlessly, like he was meant to be here. 

Johnny’s program allowed for a term in a different school, and he’d been allowed to choose. When Yuta had asked him why he chose Neo City, Johnny had said that it felt like the best choice for him. 

“And honestly, I thought maybe it’d be a good chance for us to reconnect, you know?” Johnny had added. 

Yuta still has to unpack that. 

They walk through the city for what feels like hours, scarves drawn across their necks while the wind courses through the streets. Neo City’s smaller than Downtown Chicago, but it has its charm in a way that Yuta’s fallen in love with since moving. 

He has his hands stuffed in his pockets when Johnny asks, “So, are you seeing anyone right now?” 

Yuta hums thoughtfully, and says, “No, not right now. I dated someone for a bit after I moved here, but he and I turned out to be better as friends than anything more.” 

Johnny doesn’t even bat an eyelash at the pronoun use. It’s out there, just casually tossing it into Johnny’s side of the court. Yuta waits for a response.

“That’s cool,” Johnny says, elbowing him in the arm and sort of pushing Yuta off to the side. “Good to know you guys are still friends.” 

“Yeah, Taeyong’s a real one,” Yuta says. “I’ll introduce you guys some time. You’ll like him.” 

“Oh? He cute?” Johnny asks, raising his eyebrow and smiling, easy and bright. 

“Stop,” Yuta laughs. “He’s got a boyfriend and you may be charming, but Doyoung would kick your ass.” 

“Shame, that,” Johnny says, shrugging as they turn the corner and Yuta leads them to the nearest Starbucks. “I’m on the lookout for cute boys.” 

In that instant, Yuta loses his footing on a goddamn pothole in the middle of the sidewalk, and Johnny only just manages to catch him from braining himself on the concrete. 

Johnny’s arms cradle him behind his neck and lower back, and Yuta is right-side-up in an instant. 

“Dude, you okay?” Johnny asks, stepping back. 

Yuta gapes like a fish, and mutters “Yeah, thanks,” and clamps his jaw shut, falling back into step with Johnny.

Cute boys. 

_Boys._

Okay. So they’ve both just come out to each other. That’s cool. It’s nice! It’s a revelation, but a nice one. 

As they line up at the counter and Johnny places his order for an iced americano and Yuta’s peach cloud with jelly, Yuta finds himself brimming with questions like how long had Johnny known, how did he realize it, had he ever been with any guy yet, but all questions leave him when Johnny turns to him and gestures with his head for them to move to where the drinks are served. 

They wait quietly for their drinks to be served to them, and Yuta quells the questions in his head, tells himself to shelf it for another day. Johnny is here for an entire semester, and Yuta doesn’t often think about planetary alignment or his horoscope or things like red strings of fate, but he thinks the universe might be giving him a sign here. He’d be loath to squander it this time around. 

🌿

Yuta and Taeyong spend the summer before college thinking they’re in love. 

Or, well, Yuta thinks they’re in love. Taeyong’s vibrant, and they go out to the beach and kiss in the sand and Taeyong teaches Yuta everything there is to know about everything. 

They drive out and lay under the stars next to a campfire, and Taeyong rolls on his stomach while they lay on this massive mat that Taeyong brought along with them, and asks Yuta to tell him about Chicago and how he grew up. 

It’s inevitable that Yuta talks about Johnny, but it’s an odd feeling, bringing Johnny up to his boyfriend, mainly because Yuta’s not entirely sure what Johnny is to him anymore, but Taeyong rests his head on Yuta’s lap and listens to Yuta tell him about how Johnny had approached him on the playground, when Yuta had been at the swings by himself, and they’d been in each other’s pockets ever since. 

Taeyong chews on chips and laughs when Yuta tells him the motorbike story, and he yells when Yuta tells him about the ghost-hunting at old Schaffer’s. 

Yuta doesn’t expect Taeyong to sidle up to him and brush his badly bleached hair out of Yuta’s eyes and say, “And when did you realize you were in love with him?” 

Yuta gapes at him, pulling back and frowning.

“What do you mean? I’ve never been in love with him,” Yuta says, completely thrown by this… accusation. 

Taeyong looks at Yuta with soft eyes, and presses a gentle kiss to the corner of his lips. 

“Oh baby,” Taeyong whispers. “You had no idea, did you?”

It’s a rhetorical question that gets cut off by Taeyong kissing him slowly, and Yuta refuses to face it, so he throws himself into the kiss instead. 

Later, when they lie in bed in Taeyong’s family’s beach house, tangled in each other with Taeyong sleeping soundly in Yuta’s arms, Yuta lays awake, Taeyong’s question ringing in his ears. 

He’s never been in love with Johnny. He didn’t even know what being in love meant before Taeyong, and at this point, Taeyong still hasn’t said it back yet, which is fine. Yuta’s in no hurry. They’re going to SMU together, and Yuta has all the time in the world. 

Except that when they prepare to move into the dorms at SMU, Taeyong lets him down gently, and tells him that while the summer has been fun and that he loves Yuta dearly, he just doesn’t think they’re cut out to be boyfriends. 

So they work on it, getting back to being friends, and it somehow turns out much better than Yuta expects. Nothing much changes really, except that they no longer fuck, and he figures that in the end, it’s better this way. 

Taeyong’s question only comes to haunt him once in a while, like when he packs his things into boxes and his mom asks him to sort out the things he wants to give away to charity and he finds his folder full of photos from Chicago. 

He ends up sitting on his bedroom floor going through what seems like hundreds of photos, some faded from age, some still glossy: pictures of him and Johnny in the middle of a water gun battle in the Suh’s front yard; Yuta’s 6th birthday when he’d been missing his one front tooth; Johnny’s 7th birthday when he’d insisted on a Harry Potter-themed Party and Yuta had gone as Hagrid, fake beard and all. 

It’s been months since he and Johnny last spoke, and yet somehow still, he doesn’t bother reaching out. He simply packs all the photos back into the folder, closes it securely, and shoves it into the box that he intends to bring with him to the dorms. 

🌿

He and Johnny fall into a sort of routine, now that they share a campus. 

Johnny doesn’t live too far from the dorms, and he always seems to be eager to meet Yuta at the front steps anyway. 

It’s easy, like pulling a coat back on that he knows will keep him warm. 

Yuta continues to catalog the changes that he sees in Johnny when they walk through the vast expanses of grass or when they meet up in the library. They rib each other the way they used to when they were kids, when they were stupid teenagers who lived in each other’s houses. 

On-campus wifi isn’t too bad in the cafeteria, so Johnny posts a selfie of the two of them on his Facebook page, which he only ever uses anymore so that his mother can keep tabs on him, and sure enough, Eomma Suh is the first to like it, and the first to comment about how handsome Yuta has gotten and how Yuta needs to come home with Johnny on his next break. 

“You know, that’s not a bad idea,” Johnny says, nudging Yuta in the side with his elbow, and it reminds Yuta of nights when Eomma Suh would insist that he stay over for dinner, or that he takes home a cake for his parents. It hits Yuta then that he’d left so much more than just Johnny and his childhood home when his father had had to uproot them when he’d become regional director. He’d left behind an entire family that loved him, that he loved just as fiercely. 

“Yeah,” Yuta says, swallowing through the thickness in his voice. “That would be nice. I’ve missed your parents.” 

“Mom will be ecstatic to have you over,” Johnny says. “She still kind of goes on about you, and our photos are still in the living room.” 

“No way, on the table by the door?” Yuta asks, his mind casting a map of Johnny’s house, surprised to realize just how clearly he still remembers it.

“Yep, that same one,” Johnny says, taking a sip from his giant slushie. “She even added our sports fest photo.”

“What!” Yuta laughs. “You can barely see my face in it.”

Johnny shrugs. “Doesn’t matter, she still liked it enough to put it out. Framed and everything.” 

The sports fest photo was taken after their annual school event when they were in second year, where Yuta had scored the winning goal before his entire team had tackled him to the ground in celebration. 

It had rained that day, and the field had been so covered in mud it was a miracle that the ball could roll on the ground at all, but he’d managed it, Alex Turner from the freshman team sliding too low, letting the soccer ball bounce off the post and neatly into the goal just as the time ran out. 

Johnny’s basketball game had finished in the morning, and the second years had come in second place overall for that string of events, so Johnny had been in the bleachers, running to the field while the rest of the second years watching screamed like they’d won the fucking World Cup. 

Yuta had run to Johnny, and they’d clapped each other on the back in triumph before Johnny’s mom had called out to them so that she could snap their photo, her little digital camera in hand with the flash on. 

“Hey,” Yuta says, fiddling with his phone. “What if you came back to mine for Thanksgiving? I’ll call mom up and ask her how she feels but I’m sure she’ll be happy to have you.”

“Oh my God,” Johnny says, his eyes shining like he’s a goddamn anime character. “Your mom’s turkey. Holy fuck.” 

“Yeah dude,” Yuta says. “Hold up. I’ll ask.”

Thanksgiving isn’t for another month and a half, but he pulls up his mom’s contact details nonetheless, and she answers in two rings.

“Baby!” His mother exclaims. “What’s wrong?”

“Why do you always assume that something is wrong when I call you?” Yuta says, rolling his eyes. “Can I not just want to speak to my loving mother from time to time?”

“Honey, I love you but the last time you called me during the day was when you were crying over failing math--”

“Can we not like, bring up old wounds please?” Yuta says, pinching his nose bridge. “Anyway, so you’ll never guess who’s here.”

“Who? What do you mean by here? You mean in your school? Is it Bradley Cooper?” 

Yuta has no idea why he puts up with his mom. 

“Mom, what the--no, it is not Bradley Cooper,” Yuta says, and Johnny laughs, leaning in so close Yuta can smell the bougie Tom Ford perfume he has on his neck. 

“Tell her I’m more handsome than Bradley Cooper,” Johnny stage-whispers. Yuta smacks him on the arm. 

“He says he’s more handsome than Bradley Cooper,” Yuta intones, making a fist at Johnny for his jeering. 

“That’s impossible,” his mom replies. 

“It’s Johnny Suh, mom,” Yuta says finally, and the subsequent squealing on the other end of the line makes him pull his phone away from his ear for a second before he hazards a second try. 

“--make turkey! You need to drag that boy here!” Yuta catches her mid-sentence, but gathers enough to know that she’s pitched the idea of Thanksgiving already even without his prompting. 

“Yes, yes mom, okay, I’ll bring him over for Thanksgiving,” Yuta says, nodding as if she can see. Johnny does a little fist pump and then a stupid wiggle in his seat, and oh--when Johnny looks at him with his stupid face and his stupid lipbite, Yuta feels something knock loose inside his chest, the kissing Taeyong at seventeen had felt like. 

“Okay honey, take care, I love you,” his mom says. “My love to Johnny!” 

“Bye mom, will do, love you too,” Yuta says, and ends the call. 

Johnny puts his chin in his hands and looks at Yuta, turning on the cuteness by 50%, and goes, “She still loves me.” 

“Yeah yeah,” Yuta says, rolling his eyes, and over and over and over again, it feels like whatever walls he’d built up in his head in the last four years leave him, trickling down one by one, nothing impervious in the face of Johnny Suh. 

🌿

Yuta’s life becomes a series of waking up and heading to class and doing papers and turning them in, and on weekends, he hangs out with the other people in the dorms, joining in on movie nights and getting involved in the SMU Pride org with Taeyong. 

His parents don’t go with him to Pride, not because they’re ashamed, but because they don’t particularly like crowds, and they feel like they’re too old for it, so instead when Neo City Pride happens, they hang the flag from their window on the 10th floor of their apartment, making sure that Yuta sees it when he passes through their street when he walks by with Taeyong and their friends. 

Once in a while, when he goes home for the weekends, his mother will fuss over him and his many, many earrings and his ever-changing hair color and ask him when he’ll take a nice boy home. 

Yuta will shrug, and tell her to leave him and his non-existent love life alone, please. 

“Your mom’s just worried, son,” Yuta’s dad tells him at the dinner table, clapping him on the shoulder and squeezing. “You haven’t dated anyone since Taeyong and she’s been going around asking her friends if any of them know any ‘nice boys’.”

Yuta folds himself in half, his face landing on his folded arms, his voice muffled when he says, “Mom! I told you to stop doing that! I’m not looking right now!” 

His father pats his shoulder in sympathy.

“You know how she gets,” he says, and Yuta just groans some more. 

He meets Jacob in a bookstore when the second semester of his third year rolls around, and it’s nice and comfortable and fun. Jacob kisses with too much tongue, and cares more about him getting off than Yuta getting off, but he figures it’s a small price to pay for companionship, until Jacob ghosts him completely after a couple weeks of dating. Jacob’s out of reach, Yuta’s calls going directly to voicemail. 

Yuta never hears from him again, and decides that unless the universe gives him a monumental sign where it’s undeniable that someone wants him for him, he’s just gonna have to keep his hopes on the ground. 

He doesn’t check Facebook much, not really keen on keeping tabs on people back in Chicago, but he finds himself giving in once in a while to check Johnny’s profile, just to check what’s been going on in his life. 

It appears that Johnny doesn’t use it often, either. Not the way they used to when they were in high school and treated the Wall like it was fair game for everyone to see their conversations. No more 9gag posts. Just a lot of scenery.

Yuta stares at the profile photo though, and it’s a couple of months old. Johnny’s face has changed in that his cheeks have lost all semblance of baby fat, and his jaw has gotten sharper. 

Taeyong’s voice from years ago floats up from somewhere hidden, _“And when did you realize you were in love with him?”_

It’s not exactly something Yuta allows himself to think about. His memories of his childhood best friend leave him confused now because they were kids. How was he supposed to parse platonic love from infatuation? 

His eyes trace over the face in the profile photo, and he remembers being fifteen and wanting to kiss Johnny, and how he’d never allowed himself to revisit that memory again after he’d almost asked. 

This isn’t what being in love is, he rationalizes in his head. Johnny’s attractive--has always been attractive, always been handsome, and is even more so now. Objectively, as a gay man, Yuta can admit that to himself. 

Never mind the fact that for twelve years, they’d been inseparable, or that they haven’t so much as wished each other happy birthday in years.

It shouldn’t make sense that he is thinking about Johnny again now. He’d effectively burned that bridge with his literal and figurative absence, and it seems like Johnny hadn’t minded it so much, or at least not enough to reach out to him. 

It’s like they both just realized that childhood was over and their friendship was a pair of well-loved shoes that no longer fit them. 

His finger hovers over the button that says “Like” on the profile photo. Moves the cursor. It waits over the “Message” icon, and he tries to think of how he’d manage to somehow test the waters again.

He closes the window out. 

🌿

Yuta doesn’t expect Johnny to ask him out. 

And he certainly doesn’t expect Johnny to ask him out two weeks before they’re slated to head to Yuta’s for Thanksgiving. 

Now, it would be a lie to say that he didn’t see the signs--they’ve seen each other practically every day since the day they got brunch, the only days off having been when they’d had exams, but even then, there were coffee runs (at Johnny’s behest), and donut runs (at Yuta’s) at odd hours of the day. 

They’ve worked side by side in the library until the ornery Mrs. Robinson or the younger Mr. Eli kick them out, and they, in turn, head to Yuta’s dorm on weekdays to work long into the night, or to Johnny’s when it’s the weekend and Yuta can crash on Johnny’s couch. 

Yuta introduces Taeyong to Johnny, and like he’d predicted, the two become fast friends, easily falling into a comfortable place where there are weekends out at clubs together with Doyoung, and a mix of both Johnny’s cohort, and Yuta’s. 

Slowly, gradually, Yuta starts to notice the lingering looks when Yuta glances up and sees Johnny’s blush high on his cheeks; there are hours that Yuta spends awake in bed, covers drawn up to his chin while he plays over the day in his head—Johnny’s laughter, Yuta’s muted joy. 

They spend a lot of time in the gardens that SMU invests thousands of dollars on to maintain, sitting on blankets on breezy days and the sun is out, and cooped up in each other’s apartments when the weather turns muggy, which happens so much more often now that the weather’s turned colder. 

So yeah, the signs were there, but Yuta hadn’t allowed himself much hope. He was, more than anything, just enjoying the chance to remember just why he and Johnny worked before, and learning how they worked together now. 

Yuta’s heart is hammering in his chest, feeling like his body’s about to disintegrate into goo, like he’s gonna dissolve and slide off the barstool he’s sat on like Flubber while Johnny runs his fingers through his hair and nervously looks down at his hands. 

“I know it’s sudden and like, we’re… Like this would be a gamble but,” Johnny says, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth before sighing and looking Yuta in the eye. “You don’t have to say yes. I just thought I’d throw that out there. I know I should have waited until after Tha--”

“Yes,” Yuta says suddenly, sitting up in his seat, turning his entire body to face Johnny better while he rests his elbow on the counter of the bar where they’re waiting for their sushi to be served. “I--Yeah, I’d like to go out with you.”

Johnny’s eyes widen, and now he’s the one speechless, looking as shocked as Yuta feels. Yuta’s limbs feel now like they’re floating, sort of like how he’d felt when he’d trained with ankle weights to get used to the added load, and now his arms want to float up, want to reach out and do something. 

“I--I honestly was bracing myself for a letdown,” Johnny laughs breathlessly, covering his eyes with his hand and sagging on the counter before peeking up at Yuta again.

“How long have you been meaning to ask?” Yuta rests his cheek on his fist, unable to keep the smile from spreading all over his face.

It turns out Johnny is just full of surprises. 

“Do you want the real answer or the less movie-script version of the answer?” Johnny replies, raising his eyebrow. 

“The real answer, please,” Yuta says, just as their sushi is served on little black plates. He takes the warm rolled towel in front of them to wipe his hands down before taking one of the nigiri sushi and popping it into his mouth all in one go.

The look Johnny gives him is fond, and Yuta thinks he already knows the answer before Johnny gives it. 

“Since maybe when we were fifteen?” Johnny says, turning his attention to his food. 

“Fifteen?” Yuta asks incredulously through his mouthful, bringing his hand up to prevent any rice from splattering onto the man who’s just asked him out on a _date_ date. “That was six years ago!” 

Johnny shrugs, dipping his salmon maki into some Kikoman and chewing on it. 

“What can I say?” Johnny starts after swallowing. There’s a grain of rice on the side of his mouth. Yuta takes a paper towel and reaches out to wipe it off, which makes Johnny blush furiously, a lovely shade of pink dusting over his nose. “I didn’t have a crush on anyone else.” 

A memory floats up to the surface like a buoy in Yuta’s mind. 

“I asked you then,” Yuta says slowly. “I asked if you liked anyone in class.”

Johnny side-eyes him. “Yeah, in the middle of us playing Pokemon Diamond. What did you expect me to do? Tell you outright? I didn’t have any balls back then, Yuyu.” 

Yuta can’t even begin to process that Johnny remembers that conversation. They’d dropped it so carelessly then, like it had never happened. 

“I didn’t either,” Yuta says softly. “But then again, I don’t think I even understood what that meant at the time. I knew I liked being around you.” Yuta takes a sip of the complimentary genmaicha tea. “I wanted you to be my first kiss.”

Johnny drops his tamago sushi onto the countertop, and Yuta reaches out with his chopsticks immediately to plop it back onto Johnny’s plate. 

“Five-second rule,” Yuta mutters, avoiding Johnny’s eyes. 

“Wait, say what?” Johnny asks, his voice pitching up. He sets his chopsticks down gently on the little dish next to his plate and turns his body to face Yuta. “I need you to say that again but slowly. Like, really slowly, while looking at me, so I can read your lips.” 

Yuta knows Johnny is being insufferable on purpose, smug in the way he’s smiling right now, but Yuta indulges him. 

“I said,” Yuta says slowly, tracing his eyes over Johnny’s handsome features before catching his gaze. “I wanted you to be my first kiss.” 

Johnny closes his eyes like he's eaten something delicious, sort of like when they were eight and Yuta had first introduced him to Swiss Miss with the little marshmallows. There’s a little smile on his face, and then it’s a honey-gold stare that meets Yuta’s eyes. 

Johnny brings his hand to his chest, rubbing a spot over his heart. 

“Six years, four in which we didn’t speak,” Johnny says. The hand leaves his chest, and reaches out to tuck Yuta’s hair behind his ear. “And yet here you are, the man of my dreams, sitting right next to me.” 

Yuta punches Johnny in the arm before ducking his head and turning to face away from Johnny, his entire face on fire. They’re in public, and Johnny is just waxing poetic like this, like--like they’ve been together all this time and he’s only just getting the chance to talk about it. 

Johnny yelps and laughs, the punch doing nothing in the face of Johnny’s stupidly rigid bicep. 

“What does going out with you even mean?” Yuta asks after clearing his throat. It’s a valid question. If he thinks about it, allows himself to face it, he and Johnny have been going on dates for essentially three months now. It makes something kind of crackle and pop in his head, like clarity presents itself now that he’s given himself permission to see it. 

“I guess doing whatever it is we’ve been doing, but with more, like,” Johnny hesitates, turning back to his food. “More kissing. If that’s uh, if you’re into that. If you’d be into that, with me.” 

Yuta bridges the short distance between his hand and Johnny’s nape, and brushes the short hair there once before finally picking his chopsticks up again and getting back to eating. 

“Yeah, John,” Yuta laughs lightly. “I’d be into that with you.” 

🌿

It’s like seeing a ghost, Yuta thinks, frozen in front of his laptop, the little red icon that says “Johnny Suh” lit up on his inbox. 

Three years? Four? It’s nebulous to Yuta at this point. He isn’t sure how long it’s been exactly, and it’s not like he’s been striking x’s down on his calendars since he moved to Neo City. 

It’s a few days before his last first semester at SMU begins when Yuta settles in front of his laptop, having woken up much too early. He’d been on the godawful website the night prior because loath as he is to use it, he has the misfortune of having groups for some classes on there, including the ones for his joint thesis project. 

The jolt of surprise comes and then goes, before he steels himself and clicks on the icon, the messages appearing once the page loads. 

**Recent (1)**

**Johnny J. Suh**

01:34 am

Hey Yuta! How are you? It’s been ages, man. I know this is coming out of the blue and everything but I figured I’d shoot my shot and see if you’d be willing to maybe meet up some time soon? I saw that you’re at SMU and 

Well

I’m doing a semester here as part of my program and I think it’d be cool if we caught up? 

Anytime you’re free, if you’re down for it.

01:49 am

But no pressure if you’d rather not. I know it’s like

Really sudden

01:57 am

Anyway I hope you’re well dude. Take care.

There’s no reason to say no. Johnny may feel like a stranger but it’ll be good to catch up, he thinks. Social situations can be so tricky sometimes--he’s always needing to read the room, always trying to see if anyone’s been made uncomfortable by anyone else, always trying to steer conversation into neutral territory when things get heated with his friends or in group projects. 

Yuta usually knows where he stands with people, for the most part, but he has no idea where he stands with Johnny, who was, for the longest time, the person that knew him the best, before everything--the move, the new high school, the new boyfriend, the new groups of friends, the move to the dorms, school--got in the way. 

His fingers fly over his keyboard, and his decision is pretty quick, despite all his sort of heavy guilt for not having spoken to Johnny in so long. 

**Nakamoto Yuta**

07:21 am

Hey Johnny! Holy shit dude, seriously? A semester here? Nice! 

I’m free from now until the next couple of days before the sem starts so it’s your call when it’s most convenient for you

**Johnny J. Suh**

07:22 am 

Hoyl shit goodmorning

Holy * 

Good morning *

Uhhhh what do you think about today?

I mean we’re both awake lol but any other day is good

You know the like Singaporean-Western hybrid resto on Cliff Ave? I was thinking of trying it out there if you wanna do brunch maybe? On me!

Yuta huffs out an incredulous laugh at Johnny’s suggestion of not only paying for brunch, but also meeting in a few hours, so typically like the days when he’d be knocking on Yuta’s front door with his skateboard in hand, Yuta’s mom just fondly shaking her head at the Suh boy coming over at 8 in the morning on a weekend looking for his best friend. 

Yuta replies in the affirmative anyway. 

**Nakamoto Yuta**

07:24 am

Morning!

Yeah I’ve heard of Lami

I’ve been there like twice? It’s good. Good choice

I’m good with brunch, I can meet you there at like 10:30, is that good for you?

**Johnny J. Suh**

07:25 am

10:30 is good 

Okay! Cool i’ll see you dude! 

**Nakamoto Yuta**

07:26 am

See you man

You can reach me at 212-509-6995

It’s kind of insane that Yuta’s jumping into the shower at 7:30 in the morning for an impromptu brunch with someone he hasn’t spoken to in ages, but he tells himself that this is good, that this is an olive branch long overdue, and he’d be remiss to not take it. 

As he towels himself dry and chooses a comfortable shirt and jeans to put on, he wonders if Johnny has ever spent time being shocked at the changes in Yuta’s appearance since he moved, if he’s ever trawled through Yuta’s profile the way he has on Johnny’s, if the earrings that line the shell of his ears or the battery of different colors his hair has taken on have shaken Johnny in any way. 

(He doesn’t allow himself to dwell on the fact that he’s a little nervous like he would be for a date. This isn’t anything like that. _Relax_ , he tells himself. _Relax_.)

🌿

Being in Johnny’s apartment isn’t new, but the way Johnny looks at him over his shoulder as they make their way into it is. 

They both toe off their sneakers by the door, and the modest studio apartment fills with yellow light from the lamp next to Johnny’s couch. Johnny doesn’t turn on anything else, and takes a seat, waiting for Yuta to follow suit. 

Tension feels like a palpable presence in the room as Yuta crosses the few steps it takes to stand in front of Johnny, who sits with his back ramrod straight, looking up at Yuta while Yuta tips Johnny’s head back with a finger to his chin. 

Johnny’s eyes search his face, whiskey eyes glistening in the low light.

“Are you scared?” Yuta asks, his own voice shaking. 

His heart races so quickly that he’s afraid the drumbeat will show on his chest, and he almost can, really, seeing his shirt twitch from the frequency. 

Johnny takes a shuddering breath. 

“Only scared of how much I want you,” Johnny replies, voice so low Yuta would have missed it if it weren’t so silent in the room. He’s looking up at Yuta, and Yuta steps in closer, right between Johnny’s splayed knees. 

Johnny’s arms come around Yuta’s waist, enveloping him in an embrace so warm, it could fend off the brutal winters in this city. Johny presses a kiss over Yuta’s belly once, and Yuta cards his fingers through Johnny’s hair while Johnny rests his ear against Yuta’s sternum. 

This feels like a liminal space, and it’s a place where so much of what lies behind them and what lies ahead rests on what happens tonight. 

“I’m going to kiss you now, is that alright?” Yuta asks, his voice like waves crashing on jagged rocks. 

“Please,” Johnny replies, just as brokenly.

Yuta cups Johnny’s face with one hand, fingers brushing through Johnny’s hair with the other, and the stroke of his thumb on Johnny’s cheek sets into motion Yuta’s subsequent buckling of his knees until he’s straddling Johnny, and then, just sweetness as Yuta captures Johnny’s mouth in his, the taste of the matcha ice cream still lingering on Johnny’s tongue. 

Yuta’s eyes slide closed as he and Johnny kiss, and his mind plays a reel of them at fifteen, thinking that it probably wasn’t normal to want to kiss his guy best friend; of nights alone where he’d pressed lips to his pillow in the safety of his room and the shroud that moonlight provided him, wondering if Johnny would kiss him back, wondering if he would enjoy kissing Yuta. 

Johnny’s hands find their way to Yuta’s hips to steady him from rocking too far back when Johnny readjusts Yuta in his lap, and oh, how lovely to feel it, Johnny’s hardness pressing against him while Yuta devours his mouth, steals every breath like he’s greedy for it, their kisses becoming deeper, more desperate. 

They should be terrified, but Yuta’s found that in the last few months, much like in the years that preceded this moment, there is no one else that can match him and compliment him the way Johnny Suh always has. 

“Kissing you,” Johnny sighs, pulling away momentarily for a breath. “Is better than I’d ever imagined.” 

Yuta has no chance to reply because Johnny, in a moment of impatience, takes him by the neck and brings his lips against Johnny’s again.

Yuta hates to think of the cliches that pop up in the romantic comedies that Johnny so loves to consume on nights when they don’t want to think, but Johnny’s hands slip under his shirt, warm palms splayed open over Yuta’s back while his lips trace a path to Yuta’s neck, and Yuta understands, in this moment, why so many people do such crazy things for love, if this is the trade-off, if this euphoria that comes from being caressed by someone you know would without a doubt give their life for you is the metaphorical gold at the end of the rainbow.

Because Yuta knows that Johnny loves him even without saying it.

He’s had a lifetime of Johnny’s acts of service and quality time, enough to know that despite the four-year silence, these last couple of months have given them a chance to find their way back to each other again, in a way perhaps that had been destined since they were small and stupid and absolutely smitten with each other in every way, shape, and form, first as friends, and now, now, after years of waiting, lovers. 

And Yuta loves him, too, but he’ll hold on to that for now. He’s pretty sure Johnny can tell, anyway.

Yuta’s shirt comes off button by button, Johnny chasing every movement of his deft fingers with a butterfly-soft kiss, and he whines low and irritated that Johnny has not yet discarded his stupidly expensive plain white t-shirt. 

“Get this off,” Yuta tugs, and Johnny laughs softly before pulling back and taking the offending piece of cloth up over his head before tossing it to the side of the couch. 

Johnny’s body is immaculate, and the last of his fear leaves him as he runs his hands over Johnny’s chest, nipples small and brown and hard in the cool room. Muscle jumps under Yuta’s palm, and Johnny takes another steadying breath before his hips rise to meet Yuta’s ass, and Yuta can feel the shape of him through the fabric of his jeans. 

“What do you want, Johnny?” Yuta whispers, both his thumbs stroking over Johnny’s cheeks. 

“You, all of you,” Johnny replies, and suddenly there are hands under Yuta’s thighs, his arms coming around Johnny’s neck to hold on, and they’re rising from the couch, Yuta’s legs locking behind Johnny’s back as Johnny brings them into his bedroom, strong and steady until Yuta’s being cradled and laid down on Johnny’s bed, the double a snug fit for them, but more than enough reason for Yuta to keep holding Johnny close. 

It’s a flurry of movement now as they both work their belt buckles and jeans open, the last of their clothing coming off in swift motions. Yuta reaches out to the lamp next to Johnny’s bed and a muted white light filters through a blue lampshade. 

Johnny looks like a dream, his muscled arms and his broad chest giving way to a belly that’s clearly seen better days at the gym, rendered a little softer now thanks to Yuta’s cooking and all their dates out to eat their way through the city like Johnny had requested. 

His cock rests in a nest of thick curls, uncut and heavy between his legs, hard to the point of redness, and Yuta longs to taste it, longs to have it inside him, but his train of thought is derailed by the reverence with which Johnny looks up at him, his hands spreading Yuta’s legs apart, eyes on Yuta’s torso, then his hardness, made even more visible by the lack of hair there, a result of Yuta’s preference for waxing.

“I’ll be honest, Yuyu,” Johnny says as he braces himself on one elbow, his hardness pressed against Yuta’s own as he settles comfortably between Yuta’s spread legs. “I’m not sure I’m going to last long enough for either of us to prep.”

Yuta groans from arousal, hissing through his teeth while he rubs his cock against Johnny’s. 

“Oh my God, you’re a switch?” Yuta asks breathlessly, beyond turned on from this information. 

“Only for you,” Johnny says, catching Yuta’s nipple between his fingers. “Whatever you want, I’ll try it.” 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Johnny,” Yuta gasps, reaching between them to try to increase the friction while they piston their hips against each other, and the only thing slicking their way is how much precum they both seem to be leaking. “I wanna try everything with you. Fuck, everything. But right now I just--”

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” Johnny says, reaching out to pull open the drawer, blindly fishing for something while jolts of electricity spike in Yuta’s body, the pleasure he’s chasing only just on the brink of getting there. 

The click and a wet squelch are the only warnings Yuta gets for the lubricant that Johnny slathers copiously between them, and it’s maddening, absolutely fucking batshit sexy how good it feels to know that Johnny’s thick cock is frotting against Yuta’s own, and Yuta’s vision starts to dance like fireflies when Johnny’s fingers link with his to create a tight crevice that they both can feel and fuck into. 

Johnny swallows every moan and gasp that slips through Yuta’s mouth, hips and hands moving, Yuta rocking back and forth to fuck against Johnny’s cock faster, and he feels his orgasm build, feels it in the way his legs tense up, his toes curling, the sensation traveling up until his balls start to tighten, and it’s so good, it’s so fucking good Yuta can barely breathe, has to force his lungs to work and take in air because there is no chance in hell that he’s going to die before he gets this man to fuck him, to love him, to marry him, to raise a family with him. 

Yuta’s thoughts and his body all feel like atoms about to undergo fusion, and he sees his life with Johnny by his side, no moment to spare about how dramatic he’s being when the head of Johnny’s cock catches on the head of his, and then he’s spilling hot and wet and so, so much between them. 

Johnny’s “Fucking hell, you’re so hot,” is the last lucid thing Yuta can comprehend before the white noise takes over and Johnny is still jacking the both of them through, Yuta’s cock still hard and still emptying itself while Johnny yells and then coats his hand and their cocks in even more cum.

They share gasping breaths, hot between their faces, their kiss barely one, just open mouths and clashing teeth, and then Johnny is laughing, flopping down next to him, before he’s slinging a thigh over Yuta’s, completely uncaring of the mess of lube and cum between them, enveloping Yuta in his limbs like a koala bear. 

Yuta turns on his side to see Johnny better, to study his face, to see if any regret rests behind those amber eyes, but all Yuta sees is awe, and softness. Yuta wonders if Johnny can see it reflected in Yuta’s eyes, as well. 

“You still want this?” Johnny asks quietly, and Yuta picks up on it, an old insecurity that he knows they both need to unpack. 

“I do,” Yuta says, brushing Johnny’s sweaty bangs back from his forehead. “I do.” 

🌿

The scar on Johnny’s right knee is shaped like Manhattan. 

Yuta traces it absentmindedly with his fingers while Johnny works on his tablet on the other end of the couch, his legs plonked on top of Yuta’s thighs as Yuta uses said legs like a desk. It’s not the first time he’s seeing it, but it’s the first time he’s touching it.

“Your laptop’s starting to singe my leg hair, Yuyu,” Johnny says, but he sounds bored almost, like it’s not really an issue. He doesn’t even look up from his tablet when he says it. Still, Yuta closes the laptop and sets it aside so he can turn his focus more on Johnny’s legs, gently tracing along the shin, fingertips over the plastic web of scar tissue. 

“I was there for all of these,” Yuta murmurs, mostly to himself. “But this,” he says, thumbing over the Manhattan one. “This one was my fault.” 

Johnny looks up from the tablet then, a little smile on his face, before frowning dramatically, and pointing at his chest. 

“No, _this_ one was your fault,” Johnny says, now fake-crying and beating his chest like a K-drama star. 

Yuta won’t stand for it.

He tackles Johnny with knees and fingers digging into sides and armpits until Johnny is yelling “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” while laughing, and then Yuta has Johnny’s arms braced over his head, locked in place with Yuta’s hands. 

Johnny’s laughter subsides, his eyes shining with mirth still, but there it is again, the same honey warmth that Johnny no longer hides from him. 

“I’m not keeping score, Yuyu,” Johnny says. “I’ve never kept score with you. It was never about whose fault it was about anything.” 

Yuta swallows around the lump in his throat, the one that’s kept coming up and threatening to let “I love you” spill out too soon since their first official date. 

“I just feel so guilty, all those years where I could have said someth--”

“I know,” Johnny says softly. “I could have said something, too.”

Johnny tugs him down so he can lay chest to chest with Yuta, hands roaming over Yuta’s back. 

“We did our time, don’t you think?” Johnny says, his voice rumbling up from his chest. “I don’t hold anything against you, baby.” 

_Baby._ It slips out once in a while. Johnny uses it sparingly, like a pinch of saffron whenever he wants to say something particularly endearing. It works every time. 

“I don’t, either,” Yuta replies. 

“I need you to forgive yourself for whatever imagined grudge you seem to be holding against yourself,” Johnny says. Yuta closes his eyes and listens to the sincerity and reassurance that only Johnny’s cadence can seem to convey. “I’m here now, and I may be here for just the semester, but that doesn’t mean you’re losing me again. I’m here for however long you want me around. We’ll figure it out. I’ll graduate and move here, or you’ll graduate and move back to Chicago. Or we’ll graduate and live in a fucking cabin. We have time to figure it out. I need you to know this.”

“I want you around for good, Johnny. I want to be around you for good,” Yuta says, bracing himself over Johnny to look him in the eye. What’s more shocking about this truth is the fact that there is absolutely no fear in his voice when he says it. No fear in his heart. 

Johnny huffs out a breath, and his smile is radiant when brushes the hair out of Yuta’s eyes.

“Bodes well for us then, that we want the same things, eh?” Johnny says. His eyes are the color of citrine in the daylight.

Yuta allows himself to be cradled once more against Johnny’s chest. 

“Yeah,” Yuta replies, melting against him. With his cheek against one perky t-shirt-covered pec, Yuta asks, “Johnny, do you want to be my boyfriend?”

Yuta feels his face flare with heat at how elementary his words sound now that he’s said them aloud, but he thinks about Thanksgiving and how his parents will be seeing Johnny again tomorrow, and he thinks with a swell of giddiness how happy his mom will be to find that Yuta’s finally bringing home a nice boy to meet them. 

“Yes baby, I want to be your boyfriend,” Johnny replies, sweet and simple, wholly uncomplicated. “I had an event planned but you know what, I can cancel the hot air balloon. Saves me the money.” 

Yuta pulls back, not quite sure if Johnny is joking, but the kiss that Johnny steals is enough to quell all questions. 

There’s never been a tally for them, just a treasure trove of memories to fall back on, and memories they’ve yet to create. Yuta allows himself to fall headlong, to trust that there isn’t another separation in their future, to trust that his relationships don’t have to end in catastrophe, or rather that they had because they’d been gearing him up for this one. 

Johnny’s kisses taste like the candies they had as children, like the rush of cops and robbers, like longing, like forgiveness, like promise. 

Yuta falls, and savors every single one.


End file.
